The imperfect (imparfait)

Quand j'étais petit, je jouais dans le jardin.When I was little, I used to play in the garden.

The imparfait is a past tense for habits, descriptions and background situations — not finished, one-off events. It answers "what things were like" or "what used to happen", rather than "what happened next".

Quick shortcut: take the nous form of the present tense, drop -ons, and add the imparfait endings: nous parlons → je parlais, tu parlais, il parlait, nous parlions, vous parliez, ils parlaient.

Forming the imparfait

Almost every French verb — regular or irregular — builds its imparfait the same way: take the present-tense nous form, remove -ons, and add these endings:

Because the stem comes from the nous form, even verbs that are irregular in the present — faire (nous faisons → je faisais), prendre (nous prenons → je prenais), boire (nous buvons → je buvais) — follow the exact same pattern.

The one true exception: être

Être is the only verb whose imparfait doesn't come from its nous form. It uses the irregular stem ét-:

• J'étais fatigué.   Elle était contente.   Nous étions en vacances.

Spelling: manger and commencer

For -ger and -cer verbs, the same spelling adjustments from the present tense carry over — but only where the ending starts with a:

• manger: je mangeais, tu mangeais, il mangeait, ils mangeaient (the e keeps the g soft) — but nous mangions, vous mangiez (no extra e needed: i already keeps the g soft)
• commencer: je commençais, il commençait, ils commençaient (the cedilla keeps the c soft) — but nous commencions, vous commenciez (no cedilla needed before i)

Using the imparfait: habits

Use it for something that happened repeatedly or regularly in the past — often translated with "used to" or "would":

• Quand j'étais enfant, je mangeais beaucoup de bonbons. (I used to eat a lot of sweets.)
• Tous les étés, nous allions à la mer. (Every summer, we used to go to the sea.)
• Il jouait au foot le samedi. (He used to play football on Saturdays.)

Using the imparfait: descriptions and states

Use it to describe how things were — appearance, feelings, weather, age, opinions — viewed from within, without focusing on when they began or ended:

• Le ciel était gris. (The sky was grey.)
• Elle avait dix ans. (She was ten years old.)
• Nous étions très heureux. (We were very happy.)
• Il faisait froid ce jour-là. (It was cold that day.)

Using the imparfait: background and interrupted actions

The imparfait paints the background scene; a single completed event — usually a passé composé — is the thing that happens against that background:

• Je regardais la télé quand le téléphone a sonné. (I was watching TV when the phone rang.)
• Elle dormait quand je suis rentré. (She was sleeping when I got home.)
• Il pleuvait quand nous sommes sortis. (It was raining when we went out.)

Two imparfait clauses can also describe two things happening at the same time, both as background:

• Pendant que je lisais, il cuisinait. (While I was reading, he was cooking.)

Choosing between the imparfait and the passé composé for a given sentence has its own rules and its own article — for now, the pattern to notice is: imparfait sets the scene, passé composé moves the story forward.

Common mistakes

• ❌ Je parlerais for a simple past habit → ✅ Je parlais (that's the conditional, not the imparfait — don't confuse the endings)
• ❌ J'était → ✅ J'étais (the je ending is -ais, not -ait)
• ❌ nous mangeions → ✅ nous mangions (no extra e before -ions: i already softens the g)
• ❌ Il a fait beau quand j'étais sorti for a background description → ✅ Il faisait beau quand je suis sorti (weather/description = imparfait, the single event = passé composé)

Quick check

Put the verb in brackets into the imparfait.

1. Quand j'____ (être) petit, j'____ (habiter) à Lyon.
2. Tous les jours, elle ____ (prendre) le bus.
3. Il ____ (faire) beau quand nous ____ (sortir, passé composé).
4. (commencer) Nous ____ toujours à huit heures.

Key takeaways

• Formed from the present-tense nous stem (minus -ons) + -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient — the same pattern for almost every verb.
• Être is the one true exception, with the irregular stem ét-: j'étais, tu étais, il était…
• -ger/-cer verbs keep their spelling adjustment (mangeais, commençais) except in the nous/vous forms, where it's dropped (mangions, commencions).
• Use it for past habits ("used to"), descriptions and states, and background situations — not single, completed events.
• A background imparfait is often interrupted by a single passé composé event: Je lisais quand il a appelé.